


Rum Happened

by Write_like_an_American



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Demisexuality, F/M, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Short & Sweet, no actual sex but sex mention, queer pirate crises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 03:39:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5148890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Write_like_an_American/pseuds/Write_like_an_American
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy supposed he could always blame it on the rum.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rum Happened

**Author's Note:**

> **This is a quick fic that I've had sat on my computer for ages. I'm probably not going to write more for this fandom because I'm kinda tied up in the gotg fandom at the moment - but who knows what the future (and the next season) may hold??**
> 
> **Also: 'pirate captain/second in command' is like my favourite pairing trope of something jfc**

Billy supposed that he could always blame it on the rum.

Rum was very useful in that regard. Not many people appreciated it – they tended to be distracted by its other functions – but it was true. Never mind that Billy’d been on weak-as-piss ale half the night. Never mind that he could have walked from one end of the empty, dingy tavern to the other without stumbling, or recited Shakespeare without a slur (if he’d ever bothered to learn, of course). Never mind that he was acutely, _painfully_ aware that he was going to remember this tomorrow morning. None of that mattered. So long as there was rum in the vicinity, that was enough. 

Billy was blaming the rum. And that was final. 

_Excuses, excuses_ , Gates’ voice chastised in the back of his mind. _You’re sober as a fuckin’ soldier. And you’re about to fuck your captain._

Thinking about it, hearing Gates’ voice in this situation was… well, a bit _weird_. And so Billy chose not to think at all. It was surprisingly easy. Although that might’ve had something to do with the fact that Flint – _Captain fucking Flint_ , that was: terror of merchant ships, scourge of the high seas, a half-dozen other epithets chosen to strike fear into the hearts of men – had just grabbed his collar and pulled him down into a kiss. 

*** 

The first kiss had occurred roughly five minutes prior. 

Billy’s first thoughts had been purely sensory – dry lips, soft and thin. The rasp of Flint’s beard across his stubble. Fingers curling into his salt-stiff shirt. Rum. His second thoughts were an incessant vacillation between ‘kiss?’ and ‘me?’ and ‘ _Flint?_ ’: three parts of an equation that wouldn’t balance no matter what order Billy wrestled them into. He didn’t get to formulate third thoughts. While his mind was still jittering between ‘this is wrong’ and ‘this isn’t actually horrendous’, the one-sidedness of the kiss had apparently wormed its way through Flint’s drunken haze. The slide of a rum-slicked tongue along the seam of his lips ceased. Flint stood back. His hand remained, fisted in Billy’s shirt – a knot of warmth against his chest. Although now, Billy couldn’t help but feel, the motion was not quite so much _endearing_ as it was reminding him of just what those fists were capable of. Singleton. _Gates_. 

“Well?” Flint asked, gruffly. For a moment, Billy could have sworn there was something vulnerable in his gaze. Something ragged and desparate, and, damn it all, _hopeful._ But then it was gone. Swallowed up as Flint reset his customary scowl, and glowered up at Billy as if somehow, this was Billy’s fault. “What do you say?” 

Billy licked his lips, unconsciously tasting the taste of rum and sea and _Flint_ , and made an aborted attempt at breathing. He felt numb. Shellshocked. Like that moment after a cannonball struck, when everything was silent and the splinters flew in stilted slow motion. And Flint, Flint wanted to know _what he said?_

“Um.” Billy put a steadying hand on the bar top, and felt those disparate spheres edge a little closer to harmony. 

_Kiss. Flint. Me. Flint, me, a kiss. Flint… Flint kissed… me?_

Whatever it was that Flint had been searching for so intently in his eyes, he didn’t find it. The hand in his collar abruptly released. 

“You’re dismissed,” he growled, and made to turn away. 

_Flint kissed me._

“I suppose I don’t need to tell you not to mention this to the crew.” 

_Flint kissed me!_

“Or to anyone else, for that matter. This goes no further than this room.” 

_Flint kissed me and… it… wasn’t awful?_

Flint took another step away. And another. Billy’s mouth was tingling. 

_Flint kissed me and I liked it._

The captain strode to a stool at the far end of the bar. He slumped onto it like a man twice his age, grabbing a nearby bottle and swigging without a care for the contents. Red hair, loose from its usual binding, slipped forwards from where he’d tucked it behind his ears. The sun-split tips kissed the bottle’s rim; stuck to the residue there as Flint once again lifted it to his mouth. He didn’t spare Billy another glance. 

_Flint kissed me and I think I want to kiss him back._

He did, however, look rather surprised when the stool besides him screeched out. 

Billy managed to arrange himself without looking entirely devoid of grace, although his heart was pumping and every limb seemed determined to rebel. He snagged the bottle, petrified as it was halfway to Flint’s lips. _Flint’s lips_. Billy’s eyes were drawn to them. They caught on the faint sheen of alcohol, the soft, dark, rum-tasting space between them. They were parted, not in a snarl or a grimace but in honest surprise. 

Billy swallowed. 

“I’m not usually one for kissing,” he began. “Not even with the girls at the whorehouse. Not anyone, really.” The words were awkward, fumbling. But they were genuine, and Flint seemed to sense it, because he sat up a little straighter in his seat, watching Billy cautiously from under his loose red hair. Those piercing eyes were wide – never defenceless, but softer, somehow, caught off guard. Like Flint didn’t quite believe he was still here. Like he thought he was a dream conjured up by the rum. Like Billy was going to exploit this _weakness_ of his, stab him where he was soft, wring him for all he was worth. 

Billy wanted – no, _needed_ to prove him wrong. 

“Saving yourself for someone special, are you?” Flint asked. His words contained just enough bite to mock. Billy shrugged. 

“Honestly – I just don’t really think about it. Got too much else on my mind, I suppose. Dealing with our crew, who can blame me?” He tried for a laugh. It fell flat. Flint’s stare broke away, and he refocused on the confiscated bottle. Noticing, Billy wrapped his hand around it more firmly – noticing, not for the first time, how he could almost encircle it in his grip, while Flint’s fingers had only come three quarters of the way. “Sorry, captain. I think you’ve had enough tonight.” That wrung a laugh free. It burst out of Flint like it had been gouged from his chest. 

“And did you come to that conclusion before or after I kissed you?” 

Billy paused to consider. “Bit of both?” 

“God.” Flint shifted – Billy automatically pushed the bottle out of reach, but he needn’t have worried. The captain rested his elbows heavily on the table, forehead plastered to his palm as he studied the woodworm tracks as if they’d reveal the secrets of the constellations. His hair was sieved between his fingers, lank and coated with a good day’s worth of sweat. “So that’s why you’re still here. Stopping me from drinking myself to a stupor.” He laughed again, harsh and ragged. “Anyone ever told you that you’re too damned _nice_ for your own good?” Billy couldn’t help but smile. 

“Well, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t heard it before.” This was it. Flint had just given him a chance for escape. His last chance, as it were. Billy could make his excuse. He could take the bottle with him, give Flint a friendly squeeze of the shoulder and bid him goodnight – could say it was just concern for his captain that had kept him from marching straight out of those doors the second after those lips left his… 

Billy entertained that course of action for approximately three seconds. Then he dismissed it. No. _No._ A night spent stretched out on the sand, wondering where Dufresne had gone, wondering what would become of Flint’s grand designs, wondering what would happen to all of them, to Nassau, to this sandy slice of freedom they called their own… It held no appeal. Not compared to _this_. Compared to… Well, it was so rare to feel _this_ – to feel anything like _this_ , to feel _comfortable_ and _right_ when someone’s mouth was moving against yours, rather than just self-conscious and mildly silly – that Billy couldn’t really put words to it. 

Oh, he knew enough about it. The men spoke of lust often enough and with no reserve whatsoever. They were generally accompanied by lavish winks, elbow nudges, and crude gesticulation. Billy had indulged himself at a half-dozen ports, pushing coins into the whores’ hands to the whoops and catcalls of his men. He’d always treated them well, given them an extra tip on the side. They were beautiful; plump, rich breasts and long tresses, legs that split wide to reveal tender folds. And they tried their best. They always did. It wasn’t like Billy didn’t react either – have a hot hand on you and a warm body beneath, and there weren’t many men who didn’t. But while Billy could smile and kiss and fuck with the best of them… he’d just never particularly wanted to. 

At least, until now. 

A small part of his mind, the part that had watched with veiled jealousy as the wealthy farmer’s children got washed and swaddled in their best and dragged to the church to say their prayers each Sunday, muttered something about Flint being a man, and this being wrong and unnatural. Billy listened to it, acknowledged it, and politely dismissed that too. They hung men for sodomy in England. But this wasn’t England, and men could do what they fucking well pleased. Even if that included fucking each other. Resolution bolstered, Billy cleared his throat once more. 

“It’s not that I’m waiting for a girl to wed,” he said. This was going to be hard to explain – he’d never really tried before, not even with Gates (who had seemed to understand without the need for words). “More that – well, I’ve never really known a girl long enough to like her. What with going to sea and all. And the men all say that you don’t need to like her to do her, but…” He trailed off with a shrug. Flint remained hunched forwards, drilling holes in the knotted wood. Then – 

“The fuck are you telling me this?” 

Billy forced himself to exhale. Thinking about doing this, and actually doing it were two very different things. But once he’d started the motion, he couldn’t very well pull back halfway – and so he scraped his stool in so that his thigh rubbed Flint’s, and tentatively ran his finger along the line of Flint’s jaw. 

“Because I haven’t ever known a girl long enough to like her, and the rest of the crew prefer dairy goats to each other.” Flint, frozen at the contact, couldn’t help but crack a smile. It pulled at the stubbled skin beneath Billy’s thumb, and he rubbed a slow circle there without really thinking about it, warmth seeping through his chest. He was rewarded when Flint leant into it, hesitant and slight, but undeniable. “But I’ve known you since you took me on board,” Billy continued. The calloused pad of a finger pressed under Flint’s chin, tilting his head towards him although the captain’s eyes seemed determined to look the other way. “And Randall’s never seen you in the goat pen.” Another smile. It was accompanied by a weak chuckle that surprised Flint more than it did Billy – Billy, who smiled and leant in closer, trying to catch Flint’s gaze. “What I’m trying to say is… Well, I don’t much enjoy kissing people I don’t like. And it’s not often that I like someone. But I think that maybe, I might like you.”

**Author's Note:**

> **Please, please comment. I appreciate every single one.**


End file.
